I Left. I Came Back. I Survived

Now that I know how beautiful camellias are with the sun shining through their petals, it's probably going to be a theme here. This is a sea foam camellia and that seems like the perfect name to me. 

And while we're at it, here's a nice picture of a bee backing out of a different camellia variety which I have to admit I do not know the name of and which neither Google Lens nor Picture This seem to be identifying correctly. 

That bee does not care. She just wants its honey, Honey. 

So speaking of plants, I went to a nursery in Tallahassee today. Yes. I got dressed, I put on a small amount of jewelry, I got in my car and I drove to town. Amazingly, I still seem to know how to do that.
I did not go to Tallahassee's oldest and probably most venerable nursery, which is Tallahassee Nursery (go figure) but a smaller one called Native Nurseries and they do focus more on plants native to this area. I love both nurseries but Tallahassee Nurseries can be overwhelming, whereas Native Nurseries has more of the funk about it. Less perennials in full bloom jewel-colored beauty, and more shyer wildflowers and plants you might come across while walking in the woods. They both carry vegetable plants and that was the main thing I had in mind to get today. I am not ready to go crazy yet. But a few more tomatoes in the ground? 
Yes. Thank you.
I got some heirloom cherry tomatoes and one full-sized tomato, I think. Maybe two? Jessie wanted a few cherry tomatoes for her raised bed gardens in her front yard. I also got an African basil start because I MUST have African basil for the pollinators, and although I also wanted a Thai basil, they did not have any of those. 
"Too early," said the guy watering the herbs. 
Harumph. I think not. 

And all of that was great but I had an urge to go out back where trees and shrubs and so forth are kept because I wanted to look for another native azalea. And boy, did I find some. I picked out a pink one and then it occurred to me that while I was there I might as well peruse the palms which I did and I found some silver saw palmettos and I bought one of those too. I'm not sure where I'm going to plant that. According to what I read, they can grow to be fairly large. 

(I did not take this picture.)

Oh boy! Another palm tree for Mr. Moon to complain about. He's a Tennessee boy. What can I say? 

I believe I will plant the pink native azalea nearish to the orange flame one I have growing by the front yard fence. I'll squish it in there somewhere. They do not get huge. According to the all-knowing internet, they can attain heights of 6-8 feet but I've never personally seen such a thing. Besides that, they are slow growers and the odds are that I'll be gone and/or dead before this one reaches a height of even four feet. I'll be lucky to see it bloom. 
This does not perturb me in the least. 

Here are my new babies. 

The trip to the nursery just about did me in, as easy and laid-back as it was. I ended up spending more money than I had reckoned on spending and that always makes me anxious. 
But I had to find some lunch and I had determined to also go to Costco and to Publix although I did not need much of anything at either place. 

I really got anxious when I realized that I wasn't going to get home before four thirty. It's not like I had a deadline. I suppose I just felt I needed to scurry back to my burrow. And I did. 

And I have an entire day tomorrow to recoup and plant a few things. I talked to Mr. Moon a few hours ago. The tournaments are over and so he and his sister got to go out and do some fishing which is something they have always loved to do together. They hired a guide with a boat and caught some bass. I am SO glad they did that. They had to get up at 3:30 this morning but they did it and I'm sure it will be a memory neither one will forget. 
Well, you know. No guarantees about memory at our ages. 
But goddam it, Brenda and Glen are the last remaining members of their nuclear family and they deserve all the time together doing something they love they can get. 

**************

Before I go, I will give you this picture of a baby orange tree in bloom at the nursery. The two places in which I lived during my most formative younger years were both well-suited to growing citrus. When I lived in Winter Haven there were at that time so many groves that when they bloomed, the entire town smelled like orange blossoms. So of course I bent down today to take a good sniff of those sweet blossoms and I was knocked back in time. Not to Winter Haven, but to when I was a very young child, living in Roseland, and bought some orange blossom perfume which came in a sort of cream-form in a small tube when my class was on a field trip to McKee Jungle Gardens in Vero. 
Unbelievable. 
I think it looked like this.

The gardens are still there but have been renamed the McKee Botanical Gardens and are owned by a non-profit organization. The amount of area it covers is far less than it was when I bought that orange blossom perfume but it is still pretty amazing. 

Mr. Moon will be home on Wednesday so until then it's going to be me and Maurice. Here she was this morning, exploring the camellias with me. 

It's eight o'clock and I have no idea what I'm going to eat for supper. 
Ah well. I shall not starve. 

Love...Ms. Moon